


Herlyn

by ladytrollfishes (tangelotime)



Series: Standalone Character Drabbles [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Drabbles, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2019-08-26 04:57:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16674934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangelotime/pseuds/ladytrollfishes
Summary: Herlyn's a go getter, thrill seeker, yellowblooded rebel with a penchant- and ability for setting things on fire.Here's a bunch of drabbles





	1. Chapter 1

_Herlyn Frigus | 4 sweeps, 7 years old | Neuja City | 1517 words_

Your bum hits the concrete with a jolt and your eyes tear up but you snarl and bite your lip. If you cry now, Elkive’s gonna laugh at you, and Elkive needed two other kids to take your food.

“Give it back!” you yell as you jump to your feet to run after them, but you have to jump back when the olive kid takes a swipe, and all three of them get enveloped in orange psi and just lift up out of your reach. “You jerks! You fucking assholes! Get back here!” You hop up and down, trying to grab Elkive’s foot, but she’s way out of reach.

You can deal with Elkive by herself- she’s slow and all you gotta do is punch her or bite her and she loses focus and drops everything, but now you guess she’s got friends you gotta brawl through now. You spark right back at her, neon orange and teal sparks jumping off your face, but she just laughs at you.

“What kind of yellowblood are you?” she sneers. “You don’t have spark worth half a grub loaf?”

She sticks her tongue out at you, and you gasp furiously at the insult then start climbing the nearest box of crates. Maybe you could jump and catch her.

“Hey.”

A flicker of blue slices through the orange and your lunch drops to the pavement.

“What?” Elkive squawks, and drops. She’s lost focus! You jump off the box and spring, tackling her to the ground and punch her twice in the face before another foot meets your chin and you sprawl backwards onto the pavement again. 

You shove yourself up dazed, rubbing your chin. Someone’s wailing and you’re pretty sure it’s Elkive.

“Come on!” one of her goons shouts and they all go running off.

“You got guts, kid,” someone completely new says. The blue psi comes back then, taking your lunch and dropping it back into your lap. You turn to see who’s speaking. It’s an older kid, maybe six sweeps. They’ve got a red symbol on their shirt, a headband that sits over two blue psi eyes, and a casual swagger that makes you want to like them, if you knew what they wanted.

“What do you want?” you say, suspiciously, holding up your lunch.   
  
“Saw you nick that from that olive in the square,” the stranger says. “Pretty smooth work. And when you got jumped like that, well-” they shrug. “I don’t think much of bullies.”

“Still don’t know what you want,” you say, and clamber to your feet.

“I wanna make friends,” they say. “I got some people I want you to meet, and they can be your friends too.”  
  
“Yeah?” you say. “The sort of friends that can help me?”

“Yeah sure,” the stranger says. “The sort you can help too.”

You consider that for a second. Elkive got friends and she got what she wanted. The older maroon kid helped you and then you got what you wanted.

“Okay,” you say with a nod. “I’m Herlyn.”

“I’m Halkat,” they say. “Nice to meet you.”

_—_

_Herlyn Frigus | 5 sweeps, 10 years old | Neuja City_

With your eyes squeezed shut, you can feel it. You can feel the power inside you, inside everyone in the room. You tug it from inside you and hold onto it.

“You feel that power?” Halkat says. You nod. “Imagine wrapping it around the bottle and just. Lift it up.”

You take that power, wrap it around the bottle, but when you lift and you crack an eye open, the empty bottle still sits on the ground.   
  
A whining groan escapes your throat. “Uuuuuuuuuuuuuugggggghhhh-”

“Come on, Lyn,” Halkat says. “You’re definitely sparking-”

“-hhhhhhhhghhghghghghhaaaaaa-” you sink to the ground and flop onto your stomach, a piece of gravel on the floor of your secret hideout poking into your cheek.

“Herlyn,” Halkat says. “Herlyn.”

“-aaauuuughhhhhhhhh- ow!”

Something hits your head and you sit up and wince. It’s a half full bottle of soda.

“Shut the hell up!” Ferra yells. “Give it up Lyn, you’re basically flat.”

You make a face at her.

“Like your psi is any better you half cracked Spiderman,” you say. You take her soda and down the whole thing as she colors.

“Gimme back my soda!” Ferra exclaims.

“Shouldn’t have thrown it at me,” you say, standing up. Psi or not, you can definitely still beat Ferra.   
  
“Hey hey!” Halkat exclaims. “We’re trying to do something here, and we don’t have time before Alkire and Berthe get back. Ferra, don’t throw things at her. Herlyn stop whining.”

You throw Ferra back her empty bottle and stick out your tongue.

“We’ll keep trying,” Halkat says. “At the very least being a shitty telekinetic means you’re not gonna get picked up to be a ship.”

Elkive stopped being a pain your butt a couple perigees ago, when she disappeared all of a sudden. You’re not sure what really happened, but people were saying that it was one of those program recruiters. It was weird. You’d never liked Elkive, but she was still one of you, and now she was gone. At least you don’t really miss her.

“I still don’t wanna be useless,” you complain. “At least ships do something.”

“Oh shut up,” Ferra says. “You’re so fucking whiny.”

You end up tussling instead of doing more psi practice. Ferra sticks your face to the ground but you manage to lick the packaging of all of her snacks and when Alkire and Berthe get back with more loot, you and Ferra both get kicked out of the hideout for awhile.

At least you still get to eat her snacks.

—-

_Herlyn Frigus | 6 sweeps, 13 years old | Neuja City_

Ferra’s just straight up strong. She hauls you up 90 degrees up a building, and you gotta admit her psi is fucking annoying, but you guess it’s good for something, since neither of you can fly. The wind gusts and pulls off all the heat from your skin and you shiver as you stare down to the city streets, bright below you.

“Ferra. Ferra come on,” you say. “Let me get back down there.” You sound half hearted, even to you, and you kinda hate it.

“Halkat’s dead,” she says harshly. “And at least they picked that, you know, so don’t go raring off on me. The last thing we need is for the imps to decide that you’re also helm material and get culled when they figure out you’re not.”

“They’d believe it long enough for me to kill a couple of em,” you grumble. You’re pretty good with a knife, even without psi. Ferra stops to stare at you.

“You’re insane,” they say flatly. “That’s your plan? Yeah I don’t feel bad about this at all.”

You gather that familiar, useless power around you until your eyes start sparking that good old orange and blue.

“Hey I look very convincing,” you say. “You look at my face and tell me I don’t look like I’m about to start throwing cars at people.”

Ferra does look at you, and instead of her normal sarcasm, she’s looking at you in surprise.

“Hey,” she says. “Have you ever considered that you might not be telekinetic?”

You roll your eyes.

“What else is new, Ferra,” you say. “I’m barely better than flat-”

“That’s not what I mean,” she says impatiently. “Herlyn, you’re warm all of a sudden. Like we’re high up enough that this is weird. Maybe you just, I don’t know. Do heat stuff?”

You think about it for a moment.

“Weird,” you say. “You really think?”

“I dunno,” she says. “Can you make me warm too?”

You shrug, then wrap that power around Ferra too.

“Oh dude, yup,” she exclaims. “You can make things warm.”

Now that you’re paying attention, you can feel the wind push and pull at that power. The heat. It’s so weird. You’ve had it all your life and you never knew what to call it. All those bottles and boxes you tried to lift, you guess you were just heating them up. What the fuck.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” you exclaim, staring at your hands.

“Keep me warm while I haul your ass out of trouble maybe,” Ferra snaps right back at you and keeps on climbing.

You had barely paid attention to that schoolfeed about thermo-whatevers, but maybe you should go back and look to see what the heck you can do with this. Whoever heard of psi that you need to study to use?

Ferra heaves you to the top of the roof, and sighs, taking a deep breath as she crosses her arms and looks at you.

“This sucks,” she says. “A lot. But don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

You pull a match out of your sylladex. If you could just… shove as much power into the head as possible maybe it’d- you spark and it lights.

The two of you stare at the little flame burning between you.

You grin very, very widely.


	2. PARTY HEIST

  * **7:**  Distract-Someone Kiss



_Herlyn Frigus | 1061 words | 10 sweeps, 20 years | Some Random Au_

You never realized how much you looked down at people, in a literal sense, until Gia somehow found herself a pair of stilettos that gave her an extra inch on you when you usually could look over the top of her head, no problem. You don’t even get how she’s walking quietly in those monstrosities. Even the rustling of the stupid poof that rests on her hips is near silent. 

“You realize this is ridiculous, right?” you hiss  _up_  at her. “You’re going to break an ankle, just take them off.” 

Gia just gives you a sidelong glance, grey contacts framed with perfect winged eyeliner, a smug smile on her lips. You get that you’re undercover at a party but you kind of hate that she looks so good and not even a little bit platonically.

“Focus,” she hisses back, smug as a snake in your shoes. Your  _sensible_  shoes. “We’re here for a mission, remember? Breaker’s around the corner.” 

“Since when was six inch stilettos professional?” you snap back and contemplate where you might find two inch heels on short notice, and also wonder where Gia’s closet is so you can snap all the heels on her shoes. 

You round the corner and just like Gia says, the breaker box is right there. It’s at the end of a dead end though- you have to work quick before someone walks by and wonders what you’re doing loitering in a corner by the breaker.   
  
“Keep watch,” you mutter as you pull lockpicks from your jacket pocket and stick it into the key hole. It’s a simple lock too, and it pops open in a couple of seconds. It’s a mess of wires but you need this to be timed properly. It’s a simple enough trap- tie one end of a rope to the connection point of the wires, the other to a weight. Tie the weight up and let a candle burn through the second rope until the weight swings down and disconnects the candle. With the cord you were using, you’d have about five minutes before the whole museum blacked out.   
  
You had just put the little tea light in place when Gia hisses, “Someone’s coming!” Great. You light the candle with a flick of your finger and close the door a little too hard.   
  
Gia shoots you an extra glare, but instead of reaching for a weapon, she reaches for you, grabbing you by the lapels of your cheap suit and shoving you back into the breaker box. You have a split second to think  _what,_  and then another to think  _hot,_ before she mashes her lips against yours. A finger trails up your neck, her nail drawing a line to your jaw. Your hands go to her hips, grasping at the fabric of her dress to pull her in closer and nip at her lower lip- 

“Ahem.” A guard clears their throat and you remember why you’re here. Gia pulls away and you straighten, slightly rumpled and dazed. You’re pretty sure you have lipstick on your face now when you didn’t before. 

“Get out,” the guard says with apparent disgust. You raise your hands in a sheepish shrug when there’s a loud crackle behind you. 

You glance backwards- the breaker box is sparking. The lights flicker, and then cut out. You must have knocked over the candle onto the wires when Gia slammed you into it. 

“What did you do?” the guard shouts and pulls out a gun. As soon as they do, you shove as much heat as possible into the handle, and as they were about to fling it aside, a shot rings out and they drop to the floor. Gia’s fast with her pistol you have to say but- 

“I  _disarmed_  them you know!” you exclaim. Now that there was a shot, you’d have to fend off more guards. 

“Oh,” she says. “Oops. Now can you fix the fire before it-” 

The fire alarm goes off. 

“That’s an electrical fire, and I don’t do electricity, mate,” you tell her and scoop her up in your arms as she squalls. “We gotta jet.”

She crams a hand in your face, jamming your jaw up into your teeth as you equip your roller blades. “Ow!” you exclaim.

“Put me down!” she demands. 

“Faster this way!” you grin at her past her fingers and force the compressed cans of air at your heels to expand and shove the both you down the hall at a decent clip.

Gia stops struggling then, shooting you a poisonous look before hooking an arm around your neck with her pistol at ready in case someone else tries to stop you. “You’re nuts,” she says. “Daisy and the others better get something out of this.” You just grin back at her. 

“Shouldn’t have shoved me into the breakers,” you say, panting with the exertion.

“Fire!” you holler as you burst out into the ballroom, but you do so unnoticed. There’s already a certain amount of controlled chaos as the party goers are already yelling and rushing for the door. You grind down the railing of the small flight of stairs that leads you to the ballroom and make a break for the tall, near ceiling length windows. Gia mutters, “Oh no,” and clutches you tighter.  

“I got this!” you exclaim. You really should- with the inertia and weight you’re working with now, there’s no way that glass would bounce you back. Unless the museum sprung for silicon glass in their restoration windows. Which you doubt. 

You jump, twisting so that you angle yourself so that your back meets the window. The glass bursts open with an enormous crash, and deposits you both rolling into the outside bushes with the rain a lot of glass shards. 

You hear Gia sit up take a deep breath and breathe out again. 

“We should do that again some time,” you comment casually, picking yourself up out of the grass and pulling off your skates. 

“What?” Gia asks as you help her to her feet. “Burning down museums and crashing through windows?” 

You scratch your cheek. 

“I was thinking more, making out in dark corners,” you say. “But if you want?” 

“You’re going to need to work a lot harder than that,” Gia says, still standing taller than you. She gives you a sidelong glance and walks off.   
  
You shrug and follow her. “Well,” you say. “I do like a challenge.” 


	3. Opia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Herlyn and Taz go to a dive bar, and some feelings happen.

**Opia: The ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.**

—-

_Herlyn Frigus | 10 sweeps, 21 years | Some Dive Bar Somewhere | 1144 words_

—-

The bar’s the sort of dive you find at the deep end of the swimming pool. The floor’s got a layer of grime and stickiness a broom wouldn’t pick up, and by the looks of the bartender, dead eyed and bored, they don’t give a single crap. The minute you step in, the whole bar’s looking at your strange old mug, and you flash a challenge of a grin.

You’re not above a good old bar fight, assert your worth but Gia slips in front of you and leans on the bar to address the bartender. 

“Barnum,” she says, “Got a place for my friend and I?” 

As soon as she does, you see him actually give you a second glance, then smiles a smile you’d classify as oily. 

Gia’s not the sort you’d peg as a regular for a place like this. She stands out in the grime with her three piece suit and fancy hat- but at her appearance the rest of the bar shuffles back into their drinks and their conversations and you’re down one bar room brawl. 

Barnum jerks their head towards a couple of empty barstools. “You bringin’ any business around tonight?” they ask and Gia shakes her head. 

“Just looking for a drink,” she says. “My regular please.” 

Well it explains how she knows this place, if she’s done business here. Barnum turns an eye towards you- you’re dressed much more in the style of the bar, in a ratty old band tee and a denim jacket with some mysterious stains on it. You think it adds character, to which Gia definitely agrees. 

You return the bartender’s once over readily. If they’re eyeing you for looking out of place next to her, you could same about their association with her. 

“And your friend?” 

“Whiskey, neat,” you say casually, slipping your thumbs into your jean pockets. The bartender turns behind the bar and starts setting up your drinks as you take your seat. Your section at the bar is a little sticky, but hey- your jacket’s stained anyway. You plop your elbow on the table and spread out like a weird spider as you watch Gia take out a handkerchief and brush some crumbs off the stool before sitting down. 

You roll your eyes. 

“What, are you too good for those crumbs now?” you joke. “Kicking them off the seat like that.”  
  
Gia doesn’t dignify that with a response, just a dirty look. You chuckle as your drink lands in front of you. You make a face- it’s way more sweet than how you usually like your whiskey, but alcohol is alcohol and you take another swig. 

Gia’s regular is apparently rum and coke. More rum than coke, and a few shavings of ice. She plays with the glass in her hand, instead of taking a drink. She leans against the bar, turning her body towards you. When she looks at you, there’s no joke in her eyes, just the solid steel grey. You turn back to your glass. 

“So how have you been?” she asks. 

“S’fine,” you say, and take another gulp. It’s not good enough whiskey to savor- the burn of alcohol is more drugstore than brewery. You can already feel the tell tale buzz at the edge of your awareness.”

“You’re going through that whiskey pretty fast,” she notes. 

“You haven’t touched yours,” you reply. 

“Ver,” she says, exasperated. “You’re driving me crazy. You’ve been picking fights every two seconds, you’re angry all the time and you won’t look me in the fucking eye. What’s wrong?” 

You look her in the fucking eye. 

You hang out with more hemoanons than the average person, you think. Staring into baby greys doesn’t feel like looking into a kid’s eyes anymore. Look closely enough and you can spot the thin line of her contact around her iris. No, Gia’s grown as you are, and her baby greys just ask you what you really know about her. 

You’re hemofaking too- you got contacts in maroon, not grey, and librarian glasses to match but for some reason it feels like Gia sees right past them. Looks right past them, into something deeper. 

You settle both your elbows back on the table, your drink in hand and your eyes on the scars in the soft varnish of the bar.

“Last I checked, Gia,” you say, taking another sip of whiskey, “we weren’t actually quads.” 

Her silence is wounded, and you blink at her startled. She’s got her lips pressed together into a thin line- an impressive feat for her, her lips were pretty pillowy- and she’s staring at you intensely, like she’s actually upset. 

“-aw shit, Gia,” you say hastily. “I mean I like you, but this has just been for fun yeah?” 

You flinch when she draws back an arm, but she doesn’t try and break your nose- only socks you in the shoulder just hard enough to bruise. 

“Asshole,” she says. “You don’t have to be quads to worry about someone. And your quads aren’t here.”

It’s easier to look her in the face when she’s pissed, (doesn’t hurt that the fangs come out gleaming too) and you rub your shoulder ruefully. 

“Guess so,” you say. “But seriously, I’m fine.”

Gia makes a noise of disbelief. “I think I know you well enough by now to know when shit’s different. You’re different now.” She pauses, hesitates long enough to bite her lip so you fill in her sentence for her.

“Since I got kidnapped by a pirate,” you say with a snort. “You can say it, you know. It’s like, ridiculous, right?”

You can’t quite believe it actually happened, to tell the truth. It feels slightly like it happened to someone else, with how ridiculous it all is. But Gia’s not finding it funny- she’s frustrated, her lips pressing together again. This time, she’s the one that looks away, pinching the bridge of her nose as you sit there, grinning. 

“C’mon,” you say, only a slight whine. “It’s really no big deal.” 

When she looks back up at you again, her lips are still pursed, her face solemn, but her eyes has something in it that’s not hate or even annoyance it’s- 

“Don’t you fucking pity me,” you snap, good mood suddenly gone. “Don’t you dare.”

Gia’s eyes flash with a sudden fury. 

“Then don’t be so pathetic,” she snaps right back, fangs bared. 

A drop of heat slides down straight to your stomach as you sneer at her. “Oh yeah?” you growl, leaning forward. You got yourself braced up against the footrest of the stool and push yourself up so that you’re just hovering over her. And you take care to drag your gaze down, lingering on her lips, before you meet her eyes again. “Am I really so pathetic now?” 

Gia doesn’t give an inch. Her breath is on your face, her nose barely brushing yours. 

For one silent moment, she stares straight at you with those steel gray eyes. 

Then she reaches for you, just as you crash your lips onto hers. 


End file.
